Ofcom receives most complaints about Orange broadband

Ofcom has revealed the most complained about broadband, mobile, landline and pay TV providers.

Antony Savvas
December 19, 2012

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Ofcom has revealed the most complained about broadband, mobile, landline and pay TV providers.

Focusing on the main providers in the third quarter of this year, Orange generated the most complaints at 0.50 per 1,000 in the broadband market, increasing from 0.29 per 1,000 customers three months earlier.

The data reveals a significant spike in complaints in September. This appears to be related to Orange’s customer notification of the withdrawal of its free broadband offer unless customers acquired line rental from the company, said Ofcom.

TalkTalk was the second most complained about broadband provider, with complaints falling quarter on quarter from 0.42 to 0.35 per 1,000 subscribers. TalkTalk's complaints remain higher than the industry average, but this is the first quarter since Ofcom first began publishing complaints data that TalkTalk did not have the highest volume of broadband complaints.

Ofcom said TalkTalk generated the most complaints in the landline market, generating 0.39 complaints per 1,000 customers.

BT complaints moved above the landline industry average level to 0.21 complaints per 1,000 customers in Q3, increasing from 0.19 the previous quarter.

Virgin Media and Sky jointly achieved the fewest number of complaints at 0.12 complaints per 1,000 customers, falling from 0.14 in the previous quarter.

In the pay-monthly mobile services market Ofcom received the most complaints from T-Mobile customers during the three months to the end of September. T-Mobile generated 0.17 complaints per 1,000 customers, mainly driven by disputes over billing and how complaints were handled.

T-Mobile, 3UK, Orange and Vodafone all generated complaints in excess of the industry average. O2 was the least complained about mobile provider with 0.05 complaints per 1,000 customers.

In the pay TV market Ofcom received the most complaints about BT Vision at 0.23 complaints per 1,000 customers. Despite a marginal decrease from 0.25 the previous quarter, complaints about BT Vision are still six-times greater than the industry average.

Complaints were partly driven by problems with service provision, said Ofcom. BT Vision viewing boxes use a cut-down version of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Virgin Media attracted above industry average complaints at 0.06 complaints per 1,000 customers, while Sky had the lowest number of complaints – 0.02 per 1,000 customers.